Mercedes Benz 220SL

I remember the time when I was still a teenager; I felt that everything that I did was under the guidelines of my parents’ strict rules. The feeling of helplessness was always felt in every decision that I made. It seemed that I had to obey by the rules because I had to repay the hard work that my parents had to endure to put me through school and by providing the essentials of growing up. Like “mom” in the short story “Mercedes Benz 220 SL” by Rosario Ferre, I felt that my teenage experience was like an imprisonment that lasted as long as I remember. In the short story “Mercedes Benz 220 SL” by Rosario Ferre the character of “Mom” is married to a materialistic and possessive husband known as “Dad.” She had nothing to look forward to before she got married and in a sense she had nothing. She had little influence in the community. One Sunday evening while the couple was out for a

cruise in their German made car, close to home they encountered an accident that would leave wounds and guilt that was deep enough to replay the wounds that was left by her son. She would say short prayers to strengthen her, to cope with dad"tms reckless driving. "it"tms always been like this, since we got married twenty years ago he buys me everything, he"tms a good provider, but always the same deafness, I"tmm always at his side and always alone, eating alone, sleeping alone, once I looked at myself in the mirror, I opened my mouth, touched my palate with my finger to see if any sound came out, testing, one, two, three, my mouth formed the words for things, wood and hair, eye and lip, checking, the flow of breath, testing on two three, but nothing came out, it was clogged up in there as if the opening were too small or the words too large, edges painfully jammed into the gums. She was also held imprisoned every time she would enter that car. Mom was the type of wife that would put her husband on a pallet and support them like the rigid structure of the Mercedes 220 SL in the story. It seems rare but if you look deep inside, there is a "Mom" in all of us, one point in our lives. "Thank you, of God, for the protection, for the security, for the wonderful armor of a car around us, God forgive us and the Virgin protect us, one can"tmt live without money," (Ferre 878). Mom knew what kind of relationship she was in all along. There was no doubt in her mind that she was confined in an relationship much like a prisoner but a willing prisoner that would stay for the long run, "I made the right decision not to leave Dad, he keeps doing foolish things to scare meme, like driving a hundred miles an hour down the highway, but it"tms not that he doesn"tmt love me, it"tms just his way. Even though the feeling of imprisonment is imbedded in her head, she had the power to overcome it but instead she chose to endure it. It seemed incoherent at first but knowing where she came from and what she has right now it is well worth the imprisonment and mental constraints that came with marriage. She is imprisoned under her own will. Even after the accident she still chose to stay helpless.